


i should live in salt

by nymja



Series: oh my god they were soulmates [3]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Background Arya/Gendry, F/M, Modern AU, Red String of Fate, Soulmate AU, background Yara/Daenerys - Freeform, referenced domestic violence (past), referenced drug use/addiction (past)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-04
Updated: 2019-06-04
Packaged: 2020-04-07 16:14:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19088560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nymja/pseuds/nymja
Summary: She’d been eight when they found out.“Robb!” He yelled, laughing as she bit down hard on her lip and glared at the thread around her wrist with tears in her eyes. “Your sister’s got to marry me now!”“No Idon’t.” She put her hands on her hips. “You’re a terrible boy, and I want nothing to do with you!”She left as fast as she could. Behind her, Theon’s laugh turned into a scowl. “Good, then!”





	i should live in salt

**Author's Note:**

> part of a series of standalone soulmate fics set in the same universe. enjoy!
> 
> \--  
>  **[spotify playlist!](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1Hi4RUOyip1pphUux8fdGh)**

She’d been eight when they found out.

It had been a day like any other day. Robb, Theon, Jon, Bran, and Arya had been running around in the yard, playing football or something close to it. To her, it just looked like her younger siblings were looking for an excuse to scream and tackle each other as the older boys ignored them in favor of their game. Sansa had been sitting on the sidelines, petting Lady and wanting to avoid all the mud-- especially on her new trainers.

At some point, either Robb had thrown too far, or Theon missed a pass, because the football landed directly in front of her. It sprayed up, a light dusting of mud getting into her face and onto Lady’s immaculately groomed fur. Theon ran up, clapping his hands. Sansa had no idea what that meant, and she was too upset to attempt to understand it.

“What have you done!” She screamed, trying to brush the mud off of Lady, who suffered in dignified silence.

“Just throw the ball back!” He yelled.

“I will do no such thing!”

“ _Ugh_.” Theon ran up to grab it himself. But then he’d stopped, watching as Sansa continued cleaning her dutiful dog.

“When’d you get that?”

“Get _what_?”

“Your string.”

Sansa stopped. In truth, she had gotten it last night--and it had made her almost giddy, her young mind dreaming up possible matches: maybe he’d be a popstar, or a baseball player, or a doctor. Almost certainly, he’d be blond.

“Last night,” she said with an upturned nose.

And then Theon did the worst possible thing he could have ever done.

He raised his arm, a small string around his own wrist. “Me too.”

She felt all the blood drain from her face.

“Robb!” Theon cried out, laughing as she bit down hard on her lip and glared at the thread around her wrist with tears in her eyes. “Your sister’s got to marry me now!”

“No I _don’t._ ” She stood,  putting her hands on her hips. “You’re a terrible boy, and I want nothing to do with you!”

She left as fast as she could, Lady on her heels. Behind her, Theon’s laugh died to be replaced by a scowl. “Good, then!”

For years, their relationship never improved beyond that.

\--  
\--

 

 

Her alarm goes off at exactly 5am, and she makes herself crawl out of bed at 5:05. It’s all rhythmic after that: fast yoga, showering, brushing her teeth. There’s the whir of her blender as she makes a smoothie and while she drinks it, she selects clothes for the day with an almost military precision. She had an important client meeting with the Growing Strong label, and she always took care to wear clothes by the designer. It usually set their mind at ease when she talked about marketing campaigns.

An alarm goes off on her phone. She drinks the last of her smoothie and lifts it up to read. At the notification, she sets down her thermos in favor of writing a text.

 **SStark:** Happy 18 months :)

She’s not expecting a response at this hour, especially since Theon was now working at his sister’s bar, but ten minutes later there’s a buzz.

 **TGreyjoy:** thanks 👍

 **SStark:** Doing anything to celebrate?

 **TGreyjoy:** yara offered to make dinner 😷

Sansa smiles at that. Yara was a lot of things, but far from a cook.

 **SStark:** Come by after? I’ll make pasta

 **TGreyjoy:** **🙌 🙌 🙌** !!

The smile fades slowly from her face, and she settles on a rose-patterned jacket paired with one of Margaery Tyrell’s ready-to-wear slacks. Then it’s time for war.

Or fashion merchandising. A very fine line.

\--

At eight o’clock that night, there’s a knock on the door and Sansa opens it. Her designer wear has been exchanged for sweats, her long hair wrapped in a bun on the top of her head. Theon stands on the other side, wearing that worn, black denim jacket she’s been trying to get him to upgrade for the better part of three months.

“What was the damage?” She says with a half-smile, moving to the side so he can follow after her.

“Burnt eggs,” he says grimly. “Bits of shell still in them.”

“How is she still alive?”

“Stubbornness.” He goes to sit on her couch, then pauses. “Need help with anything?”

She shakes her head. On the burner in front of her is a nearly done shrimp primavera. “Just need to plate.”

He nods, then goes to sit. Sansa follows after him, two dishes in hand. They sit cross-legged on her sofa, facing each other as tradition dictated. One thing she’s always enjoyed about their time together is there wasn’t a need to fill empty silences. Just quiet companionship as they ate. Occasionally they’d meet each others gazes, and Theon would smile. It’s still a shy, awkward thing that looks like he’s forcing it to fit his face right. But her smile comes easier, and while he’s distracted she spears her fork through one of his shrimps to claim it for herself.

He looks better. It’s harder to tell, since they see each other near everyday, but she’s starting to notice the larger changes. His hair’s cut more intentionally, cleaner looking now that he’s not sweating as much. His eyes aren’t as sunken, the dark circles under them receding. He’s still too thin, but Sansa imagines if she continues to ply him with carbohydrates it might resolve itself.

“So eighteen months. How does it feel?” Sansa asks, taking a sip of water. Usually, she’d have wine, and she knows for a fact that alcohol is not a problem for Theon, but it feels better to have nothing out.

His lips curve up in a half-grin. “Better than it did at seventeen.”

She pulls a leg to her chest and rests her cheek on top of it. “I don’t doubt it.”

“And you?” He offers after awhile, attention focused on swirling pasta around his fork and not meeting her eyes. “It’s coming up, isn’t it?”

 _It_ has so many options. Her father. Her mother and Robb and Jeyne. Rickon. But Sansa knows what he’s referring to and wishes she had indulged in wine tonight.

“Next week,” she offers, grabbing her plate and standing. When she raises an eyebrow, Theon offers his own plate, which she takes to the sink.

He follows after her, elbows resting on the counter of the little nook in her kitchen. “Let’s go to the beach.”

She nods. “Alright.”

Between them, their red strings glow bright and healthy, threads as thick as bands around their wrists.

\--

They spend the rest of the night on her sofa, her cheek on his shoulder as she tolerates how he watches ten minutes of a movie, then impatiently switches to another one. After the fifth one, she snatches the remote and forces him to watch Project Runway as punishment.

\--

As she grew older, Sansa began to learn more about what it meant to have a soulmate--began to understand that they didn’t always come together in the same ways. She had been upset at Theon sharing the same red string as her because she thought she was meant for something _better._ Someone who would sweep her off her feet and write her poetry and send flowers for no reason at all. But that wasn’t life.

Sometimes soulmates never met each other at all. Her parents had been such a case, neither having a red thread around their wrists. Looking back on it, Sansa cringed at her younger self. The child who asked too many probing questions about how they could _possibly_ be _happy_. And her mother would say, with the unending patience she always held, that love could be built stone by stone instead of by a thin, red thread.

Soulmates could hurt each other. She remembers Arya’s thread-- severed then connected then severed then connected again.

Soulmates died. Her brother Jon’s had faded from red to white, a ghost of something on his wrist that would always remind him of Ygritte.

And, sometimes, the love between soulmates wasn’t the same type of love that existed in stories. She had never slept with Theon, had never kissed him or gone on a date. But it was real in that they had each other. There was no one she trusted more. No one else who would take her to the beach on the reunion of one of the worst nights of her life.  

Not all love had to be built the same.

But sometimes, she wondered.

\--

“Slow down!”

“I already slowed down!”

“Slow down, _more_!”

“For fuck’s sake Arya, just tell me what you want-!”

Sansa stands to the side, drinking from a bottle of water as she watches her little sister and her boyfriend struggle to lift a mattress down a stairwell. She’d come to help Arya move from her dingey apartment into Gendry’s house. Instead, she’s bared witness to about half a dozen shouting matches. The pair disappear out the door, and then only Arya returns--red-faced and wiping sweat off her forehead.

“Stubborn bull,” she mutters, shaking her head.

Sansa raises a cool eyebrow. “It seems you’re a match.”

“Hilarious.” Arya leans next to her against the wall, arms crossed over her chest. The red thread that connects her and Gendry is almost as healthy as her own. Sansa hopes it stays that way.

She looks at the exit to the building, through which Gendry has never returned. “Did he run away?”

Arya rolls her eyes. “He’s organizing the trailer.”

“Bold of him.”

“Yes.” She stares at Sansa, brows drawn.

“What is it?”

“Is everything alright?”

Sansa sits with the question. “Well enough.” And, because she doesn’t want to talk about anything further, she starts to climb the stairs back to Arya’s apartment.

“Bran wanted me to check on you,” Arya says as she follows after her, ever blunt.

“For what?”

“It’s just. Close.”

The words feel like lead in her stomach. Sansa readjusts her ponytail. “I’ve made plans,” she deflects.

“With who?”

“Theon.”

Arya sits with that for a moment, then nods.

“Call me if you need it,” she instructs, and then the conversation stops in favor of lifting boxes, dropping boxes, and lifting boxes again.

\--

 **TGreyjoy:** howd moving go?

 **SStark:** About as good as you expect with them.

 **TGreyjoy:** so chaotic **  
** **TGreyjoy:** never thought arya would be the first to settle down

 **SStark:** One of us had to.

 **TGreyjoy:** need a beer?

 **SStark:** Please.

\--

The Salt Wife is...gross, quite frankly. It’s the definition of a dive, and Sansa always makes sure not to wear anything nice when she goes there. One too many times the floor or a chair had been sticky. But it’s Yara’s bar, and as such, it’s a place for her to come when she needs to talk.

When a punk band isn’t playing, that is. Across the bar, a slight girl with platinum-blonde hair screams something about fire and blood into a microphone. Daenerys, Yara’s girlfriend. They had a supremely awkward dinner together about a month ago. But it had been good, in a way, to start overlapping the two halves of Theon’s life.

He’s in his usual frayed t-shirt and jeans, filling a pitcher of PBR for a bunch of men with strange mustaches. When she takes what is quickly becoming her usual stool, he catches her eye and gives a small eyeroll at the patrons before turning back to them.

“What do you want?” Yara slides in front of her so quickly that Sansa almost backs off the stool. Theon’s sister is her usual smirking self, clad in a sleeveless leather jacket over an old Misfits shirt.

“Not PBR, Coors, or Keystone,” she says.

“I think I can manage that.” Yara winks before turning away. Sansa absently fiddles with a coaster that’s clearly never been used. When Yara gets back, she sets down a bottle of imported beer that Sansa doesn’t actually hate. “You’ve turned my brother into a traitor.”

“Oh?”

“I know about the pasta.” She shakes her head. “My eggs are _fine,_ for the record. That stupid little shit.” Yara takes out a matching bottle, pops the cap off with a ring she wears on her middle finger, and clinks it to Sansa’s. “To eighteen more, yeah?”

“To eighteen more,” Sansa agrees, the two in accord on the one thing they have in common.

“What are you talking about?” Theon interrupts, sending suspicious glances between them.

Yara snorts. “Just all the kinky shit I’m about to get into.” Her attention goes to the punk band as it finishes its last song. “If you’ll excuse me.”

She hops over the bar, which Sansa is sure violates a health code of some kind, and soon it’s just her and Theon.

He leans against it. “How was your day?”

She tells him, because he’s the only one to ever really ask.

\--

On the day her boyfriend was arrested for almost killing her, Sansa and Theon go to the beach. He attempts to teach her how to fish off a dock, which she’s miserable at, and she forces him into building a sand castle that is immediately eaten up by the tide. They swim, and at one point Sansa floats on her back and just focuses on the feeling of her belly filling up with her breath and then letting it go.

And while she thinks about Joffrey, there are moments where she forgets about him in favor of sand between her toes, a lukewarm margarita from Theon’s cooler, and their legs swung lazily over each other as they lay on a blanket while the sun goes down.

The two of them are on their backs, and Sansa turns her head to look at him. Sensing her movement, he turns his head as well. They’re close enough that a shift would bump their noses together. And as the sun sets, there’s something so soft in his expression as it’s bathed in orange light.

And Sansa wonders.

 

 

\--  
\--

He’d spent most of his teens and early twenties trying to forget she existed. It was easy. Mainly because she seemed to be doing the same. Theon would be at their house, where he spent most of his time because his father was a irredeemable prick, and played video games or sports with Robb and occasionally Jon while Sansa stared at him disdainfully before going upstairs and slamming the door to her room.

“You don’t make any sense,” Robb had told him, time and time again. “And also don’t try dating my sister.”

He’d scoff, pretend it didn’t matter that his supposed soulmate didn’t want to give him the time of day. As they both grew older, it got even easier. Robb got his own flat, and Theon followed him. He’d dated girl after girl after girl, and most of them didn’t mind the hair-thin red line on his wrist. Eventually, she was just Robb’s stuck up sister.

Then _she’d_ started dating, and he didn’t know what it was he felt, but he didn’t like it. It was even worse because by that point, he didn’t know anything about her life other than the snippets he caught from Robb.

“It’s some asshole named Jeff or Joff or George this time,” Robb had said with an eyeroll, tossing Theon a beer that he caught easily.

Even then, it’d been okay to ignore. He just found someone else to focus his attention on. Then it got worse:

“I don’t like how he talks to her,” Robb would say while they played pool. “I’ve told her at least three times to break up with him.”

And worse still:

“They’re fucking moving in together!” Robb had swore, clearly upset and looking Theon in the eyes.

 _Why aren’t you doing anything?_ He thought they said. And he never had an answer that sounded convincing.

Because then Robb died. And Theon couldn’t think about Sansa, because all he wanted to do was fuck and get fucked up. Then there was Ramsay, who had gotten him pot then pills then heroin. The heroin stuck, and he remembers stealing from Yara’s apartment, selling her shit to buy enough balloons and needles to get him through the fucking day.

At a particularly low point, he’d even gone to the Starks and stolen from Bran and Rickon. And then Rickon had died, too. That’s when the heroin stopped helping. So he took more. And more.

Years went by, and Theon had no idea where he went.

\--  
\--

 

 

“You’re such a sad sack of shit,” Yara says over cereal, pointing her spoon at him in accusation. “Does she even have a clue?”

“What are you talking about?” He mutters over coffee that she has managed to burn. He’d trade Dany and Yara’s obnoxiously loud fucking if it meant he got Dany’s espressos in the morning instead of this shit.

“Sansa,” Yara says around a mouthful of crunching Fruity Pebbles. “I was going to leave it the fuck alone but I’m tired of you moping. Make a move, or I meddle.”  
  
He sets down his mug, jaw clenching a little. “I don’t want you to meddle.”

“Well you had two choices,” Yara says. “Go with the other one, then.”

\--

He doesn’t know when it changed for him. Eighteen months ago, he’d shown up at her door, strung out of his mind and reeking from the sweats and essentially living out of a gutter.  And he didn’t know why he went to _her_ when they hadn’t spoken in years. All Theon knew was that he had almost put a little too much into his needle on purpose, and he needed someone-- _anyone_ \-- to remind him of what his name was.

She’d taken him into rehab. He’d crawled out of it different.

At first, it was just getting to know each other again. Texts, a phone call or two when he was wanting a fix and she’d do something as simple as reading a grocery list to him while he tried to ground himself back in reality again. Then he learned about Joffrey, and he’d drive her to counseling because she hadn’t wanted to go by herself. He’d buy her coffee or ice cream after he picked her up. She opened up about how she worried that she hadn’t heard from Arya after she left for Braavos, how Bran seemed to be less and less of himself. He talked about Yara and his father. On days they were feeling particularly nostalgic, they swapped stories about Robb.

Then it became dinners. Stops at the Salt Wife. Dropping off lunch at the fashion house she was currently working with. Then movie nights at her place. Then just...being together, their red string growing brighter and stronger.

And now it was whatever this was. It’s slipping out under his feet. Because it’s not just comfort, anymore. It’s his pulse quickening and his heart lurching.

He’d been wanting her as more than a friend for a while now. And part of him hated himself for it.

Because Sansa might have been his soulmate, but she was so many other things before that. She was Robb’s little sister. The girl he didn’t protect from Joffrey. She was strong and talented and had her shit straightened out so much more than he did.

He’d be there for her for the rest of his life, he knows that now. But Theon wasn’t a good man. Never had been. And so he doesn’t cross that line.

\--

“How come you don’t date anymore?”

The question throws him, and he nearly chokes on his coffee. They’re sitting outside her office, Theon having caught Sansa on her lunch break. She’s wearing her typical clothes, designer and expensive and cut to flatter her perfectly. It hurts, sometimes, to even just look at her. But he doesn’t stop it, either.

Theon gathers his thoughts, trying to figure out if he wants to hear her answer to his next question. “You think I should?”

Sansa shrugs, her curtain of red hair going over her shoulder at the gesture. “I just remember how you used to.”

His grip tightens a little on his cup. “I was a stupid kid.”

“Well, now you could be a stupid adult.”

Theon shakes his head in mild amusement. But he doesn’t want to tell her the truth--that he doesn’t want to. Hasn’t for awhile, now. “I’ve used up my stupid.”

Sansa folds her hands underneath her chin as she rests her elbows on the patio table. “So no dating?”

“No.” He fiddles with his cup, digging his thumbnail into the groove of the lid. “What about you?”

She meets his gaze. “I think I’m waiting for something that’s going to last.”

He nods. That seems fair.

The two finish their coffee in silence. Before he leaves, she buys him another cup because even after eighteen months he has a hard time making it through the day without it. NA coffee, they used to call it at rehab. Back then, they made it strong enough to be sludge.

Theon drives to the beach, after that. There, he drinks his coffee and tilts his head up so he can feel the spray of the ocean, hear the tide, and forget about things for awhile.

\--

The next month, it’s his birthday. And Sansa, because she’s Sansa, insists on hosting a dinner for him at her parents’ old estate. His memories of Winterfell are _loud_ \--shouting matches between Sansa and Arya, Robb and Jon and Ned yelling at the television whenever the Wolves were losing, Rickon snarling when Cat attempted to make him do homework. Now, it’s empty halls and a lot of rooms without lights on. Only Bran lives there now, along with housing staff that the Starks have more than enough money to pay for.

Theon pulls up to the driveway, and to his side Yara lets out a low whistle as she surveys the manor.

“No wonder you never came home,” she states, unhooking her seatbelt. Dany had to appear at court, and so it was just the two of them--an increasingly rare thing.

He doesn’t know what to say to that, because he thinks if he told Yara the truth--that this _was_ home--she’d get upset. In her own way, she had done the best she could for him growing up. Even if Pyke was shit.

Sansa steps out of the front door and waves, before she heads back into the house. His grip on the steering wheel tightens. Yara sends him a Look.

“Just say something to her, you idiot.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?” When he doesn’t answer, she gives his arm a light shove. “Why _not_?”

He keeps his gaze straight ahead. The words won’t come out, and so it feels like he swallows them.

Yara glares, genuine anger leaking into her tone. “You ever consider that we give a shit about you?”

Theon bites down on the inside of his cheek.

“You think I would show up to a fucking _birthday party_ if I didn’t think she cared about you? Hell, you think I’d talk to her _at all,_ otherwise?”

His fingers flex on the wheel.

“You can recover _and_ be happy.” Her tone softens. “You don’t have to choose between them, Theon.”

He still can’t get any words out, but he feels like it’s hard to breathe. Yara sighs, shoving open his car door. “I’m going to get some cake. Come inside once you’re over yourself.”

Ten minutes pass, and then his car door opens again. His grip on the wheel loosens when he sees that it’s Sansa sliding in.

“What are you doing?” She asks.

He drops his forehead to rest on the top of his wheel. “I don’t know.”

“You might as well not know inside,” Sansa says, brows slightly rising. “Before your sister eats all the cake I’ve made.”

Theon snorts. And when Sansa reaches over to take the keys out of his ignition, he lets her.

\--

It’s not the same loud that it was in Theon’s memories, but it’s not silent, either. He’s surprised to find people actually showed up. Jon gives him a nod hello, and lets him know the semi-finals for football will be on soon. Arya tells him to stop being such a “miserable shit” when he doesn’t play the first round of cards (he plays the second). Gendry barely says anything to him, but seems to hit it off with Yara, and later he joins him and Jon on the sofa to watch the Stags versus the Dragons.

But what matters most to him is Bran. Theon formally apologized during Step Nine of his program, but they haven’t spoken since. And Sansa is right, he doesn’t seem like himself anymore. Instead there’s something hollow and aged about him, like his life has been replaced by that of an old man’s.

“Bran,” he chokes out.

He nods. “Theon.” He wheels his chair forward, and his voice is steady. “Thank you for being here. It’s good to have you home.”

Theon’s vision blurs, but he manages a nod. And then Sansa’s there, her fingers threading through his and he doesn’t know how any of this has happened.

“Are you alright?”

Theon takes a deep breath, the motion feeling easier for the first time. And then he flexes his hand against hers.

\--

“Here,” Sansa says, thrusting a box at his chest. It’s just the two of them in the Stark’s kitchen, her siblings having left and Yara sending him a strange look before saying she needed the car and would pay for an Uber if he needed it. He doesn’t know where Bran is, but judging by the silence he’s likely in bed or his room.

Theon finishes drying the dish in his hand before he takes it. It’s wrapped in dark grey with a gold bow on top. “What’s this?”

“Do you really need me to explain what a present is to you?”

“You didn’t have to get me anything.”

Sansa sighs. “Open it before I get upset.”

She knows exactly what to say to get him to do something, and so he does. Inside is a leather jacket, and he can tell just by holding it that it’s expensive. The Tyrell label of a rose inside the collar confirms it. Theon can’t remember the last gift he got, nevermind one like this.

“I hate your denim jacket,” Sansa says by way of explanation. “You’ve had it for way too long. And it’s full of holes.”

He pulls it on. It fits perfectly.  And he manages a smile. “I hate that jacket, too.”

“Good.” Sansa steps forward, kisses his cheek. “Let’s burn it.”

\--

The two of them spend the night at Winterfell, sleeping in her bed in her childhood room that has an embarrassing amount of pink in it. They don’t do anything but share space with each other, but when Sansa brings herself into his chest, he wraps his arms around her.

For the first time in a long time, Theon hopes.

\--

He gets off work at the usual 2:30am, feeling drained and exhausted. Theon’s crawling into bed, turning on his phone to set an alarm when he sees it, sent at 12:01am.

 **SStark:** Happy 24 months :)

The corner of his mouth twitches up. Two years. He’s made it two years.

 **TGreyjoy:** thank you

He’s trying to figure out something else to say, because this feels significant in more ways than one. He’s held onto a steady job, he’s letting go. He’s learning how to recover and be happy. He wants to be happy with her. He _is_ happy with her.

Then his phone buzzes again.

 **SStark:** Come over?

He looks at the clock, at his pants on the floor, and the list of things he has to do tomorrow on his desk. But he doesn’t have to think twice about it. The red string on his wrist casts a shadow on his walls as it seems to pulse.

 **TGreyjoy:** omw

\--

It’s special in that it’s the same. Sansa’s made him cupcakes, of all things, with two little candles in one. She ignites a match and dims the light.

“Go ahead,” she instructs.

“Do I make a wish?”

“I think you blow them out before the wax ruins the cupcakes. I promise you they’re good and you’ll regret it.”

His mouth twitches into a quick grin.  
Then he exhales.

As soon as the flames are out, the smoke still curling up in the air between them, Sansa leans forward and kisses him.

He kisses her back, his fingers underneath her chin.

It’s the easiest thing in the world.


End file.
